As the increase of the share of older individuals in a society due to fertility declines and rising life expectancy, population aging is an irreversible global trend, the medical expenses will grow continuously and the demand for medical implants will also increase. Typical medical implants, such as bone nails and bone plates used in an orthopedic surgery, are formed of metals (such as stainless steel, cobalt chromium alloy, titanium and titanium alloy) and have the advantages of high strength, high toughness, high fatigue resistance, high corrosion resistance, high plasticity, high workability and high economy. However, the metal medical implant does not degrade after being implanted in a human body, but has the potential risk of infection. Normally, after the wound heals, a second surgery is required to remove the metal medical implant from the body.
The second surgery for removing the medical implant has the clinical risk of causing complications and damaging nerves. Therefore, a new technology for fabricating a medical implant using biodegradable polymers and macromolecules such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyglycolic acid (PGA), polycyanoacrylate (PACA) is provided in response to the need. The medical implant formed of macromolecules can be absorbed by the human body and there is no need to perform a second surgery to remove it from the human body, hence avoiding causing extra risks and damages to the patient. However, the medical implant formed of biodegradable macromolecule materials still has the problems of lacking sufficient mechanical strength, having poor mechanical properties and high degradation rate, thus cannot be able to bear an excessive stress.
Therefore, it has become a prominent task for the pertinent industries to provide an advanced biodegradable medical device and a method for fabricating the same.